The image above is of the 73 firearms turned in a week ago in Montgomery, Alabama. While there are lots of inexpensive firearms on the table, there are some classic and expensive collector items as well.
I see a Hi-Standard Model B .22, a Beretta pocket pistol, a Smith & Wesson Victory pistol, and a Colt pocket auto .32. One of the “assault weapons” taken off the street is a Mossberg 715T, which is a straight blowback .22, dressed in a plastic AR-looking shell.
There’s an actual AR-15 clone and an Intratec TEC-22. There appears to be a pre-64 model 70 Winchester in .30-06 as well as some interesting old pocket pistols, and a S&W Model 60.
All of the pistols went for $50. Some of them look to be worth $500. The so-called “assault rifles” went for $100. And it’s hard to find a pre-64 model 70 for less than a thousand.
CrimeStoppers’ Gun Buy Back program paid people $100 for assault weapons and $50 for pistols.
“We’ve had everything from AR-15’s to 22 pistols, shotguns, some are guns that people want to get ride of because they had younger kids around the house,” says Garrett.
67 guns were turned in during last year’s 2 hour gun buy back. Serial numbers of the guns they are buying back so see if the gun was used in a crime.
Organizers of these events have become conflicted about how much they advertise them. If the events become well-known, private parties show up to purchase the valuable guns outside, benefiting all concerned, but destroying the propaganda message “buy back.” I didn’t see any coverage of private purchasers at this event, which is likely why so many valuable guns were turned in for so little in recompense.
Almost all of these guns were turned in by people who know nothing about guns and likely inherited them. But they believe the “guns off the street” propaganda and turn in $500 – $1,000 guns for $50.
From montgomeryadvertiser.com:
Tony Garrett, executive director of CrimeStoppers said most of the guns were from “residents who were not gun users and feared that the gun created an unnecessary risk around their children and/or could be used illegally if the gun(s) were stolen out of their home.”
Garrett said the next gun buyback event will be held June 29, 2019.
Second Amendment activists near Montgomery can mark their calendars for next year’s event to be held on June 29th. At least one person in Alabama is paying attention.
How much did they pay for each gun? Next time they do this I’ll set up a stand next to theirs and offer five dollars more for each gun that I accept. Of course I reserve the right not to buy rusty junk–which is what usually is brought to these buybacks.
If private parties had been there, it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have paid a couple of hundred dollars for that AR clone, the Smith & Wesson model 60, the classic Colt pocket .32, or the pre-64 30-06.
The research on these events show the police resources are better used to fight crime.
From the Freakonomics web site:
When it comes to gun buybacks, both the theory and the data could not be clearer in showing that they don’t work. The only guns that get turned in are ones that people put little value on anyway. There is no impact on crime. On the positive side, the “cash for clunkers” program is more attractive than the gun buyback program because, as long as they are being driven, old cars pollute, whereas old guns just sit there.
Having private purchasers show up at these events is cheap activism for Second Amendment supporters, not to mention a good bargain hunting opportunity. It shows that guns are valued assets for many people in the community.
©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
I have never understood how you can “Buy back” something you never owned. And did the local authorities undergo a background check and wait the required time to receive them?
The buy back is the local/state authorities buying back your right. I can’t wait for the Cell Phone buybacks to keep social media free of hate speech and fake news.
Good question!
It’s really just feel good theater.
Some people may turn in the good stuff because they have a family member who is now a convicted felon with hard time in prison for serious crime, living with them!
I do private transfer of handguns to very well vetted family members.
Gave sister in law a Bersa Thunder 380 pistol and Ruger GP100 357 WC version for use on their ranch with grey foxes that attack cats and ate neighbor’s Free Range chickens, will try to eat cats but all of their outside cats are fully equipped with sharp claws front and back so most just get a trip to DVM’s hospital. Think the foxes got the memo “Don’t mess with outdoor cats at ranch house, all are fully armed” so have had no report of outside cats being attacked in a long time. The first and only one that was was injured but not a fatal attack. Just some check of current rabies vaccination, antibiotic medication and clipped fur and wraps Healed fully and back to mouse hunting.
Is she going to sell Mossburg 12 gauge shotgun at a “Buy Back” event in Gillespie County Texas, ever. Nope! Annual Gun Show? Yip still have them. Used to go to it just to look but never brought anything.
So, yes, “Gun Backs” are just to trick non gun owners that probably inherited some pretty good weapons.
But don’t think maybe LEOs there haven’t probably selected some they wanted. Usually doesn’t happen in small towns. But when in high school there, one deputy was a major ahole. If we were under age drinking, we always went to a friend’s ranch with cattle gate and locked gate with no trespassing sign up. We never got caught in the 1960’s but not the same times as your Grand Parents time anymore. I know, I’m a Grandma. My Grandkids would not even think to ask us.
It’s a perfect choice of words, carefully made to support the belief that “you didn’t build that,” you didn’t earn that, you didn’t buy that, and you have no right to that, etc. After all, everyone knows that all of our “rights” are just privileges granted to us by Big Daddy Gubmint.
The only people who ever go to these “buybacks” are 20-40-something (D) women who’ve managed to inherit (or steal) grandpa’s huntin’ guns and don’t want those icky things hanging on their conscience, not dindunuffin gangbangers turnin their life around and whatever.
“The only people who ever go to these “buybacks” are 20-40-something (D) women who’ve managed to inherit (or steal) grandpa’s huntin’ guns and don’t want those icky things hanging on their conscience, not dindunuffin gangbangers turnin their life around and whatever.”
Not true.
A few years ago, I turned in a gun at a Phoenix “buy back.”
It was a .25 auto that keyholed at 10′. I got it as part of a gun buy from an older lady who knew I had guns, and offered me a J-frame .38, and the .25 went with the deal.
The $50 card I got was a lot more than that POS was worth.
When I’ve asked cops whether they (or their department) had a FFL to allow them to purchase guns, they all change the subject immediately.
I’ve had a couple of cops yell at me: “What the F do you care??”
“I’m a FFL. I’m also the sort of citizen who would drop a dime to the ATF to report illegal business in guns.”
Cops get real pissy when you know more about the law than they pretend to know.
DG, you’d know better than I, but is an FFL even needed for the type of transaction this is supposed to be? I mean, it’s totally non commercial, not attempting to be a business, the cops (in theory) are not going to own the guns, or to sell them. Sounds to me like no license, no BGC, just like taking out the trash.
At least in Colorado, ALL weapons transactions, dealer, FFL or private party are required to go through a FFL holder and a required background check by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
That is ALL (as in EVERY ONE). Private-to-private, Dealer-to-private, private-to-dealer, gun show or not, to your relatives or children. ALL transfers. And I would think this applies to buybacks as well.
In fact, several police and sheriffs have requested clarification and relief from the law because they can no longer temporarily issue weapons to deputies nor officers without undergoing a CBI check and filling out the transfer paperwork (with a FFL holders number).
Bummer.
Sort of “Hoist on their own petard”….
Then why don’t YOU become a police officer and show us all how it SHOULD be done? Put up or shut up.
All hail Bob in Calif. What he said X 2. 30
For all those that piss & moan about the spelling and grammar errors in TTAG articles, none have ever approached the level of utter incompetence in this :
“67 guns were turned in during last year’s 2 hour gun buy back. Serial numbers of the guns they are buying back so see if the gun was used in a crime.”
Huh?
The Derp. It *hurts*…
The errors are in a quote from another source.
The link is included.
Dean, I apologize if you thought I was implying the error was on you.
What that article you quoted wrote made nearly *zero* sense.
Some folks here bellyache about a lousy misspelled word in an article, while the ‘alabamanews.net’ can’t even try to write clearly…
The derp isn’t actually in the lack of knowledge about how to craft a sentence that actually makes sense, it’s in the information the “sentence” purports to impart.
So, they check serial numbers to find out if the gun was used in a crime. That’s obvious. What isn’t obvious is what possible good that would do.
Let’s assume they can match a gun to a crime (how? Did the perp leave the serial number at a crime scene? Possibly it was stolen. OK, I’ll give that one. But there’s no way they will run ballistics tests on guns turned in unless there’s a compelling reason to do so.). What does that give them? They already claim the “buy back” is reducing crime (with nothing to back the claim up). If the gun was stolen, they are supposed to make an effort to return it to the former owner. Otherwise, what is actually accomplished by checking serial numbers?
Maybe someone here can tell me, but I’m seriously stumped on this one.
I think this concept, or statement, of ‘running the numbers’ is in a similar vein to frequently asked but often meaningless questions such as “Is that gun registered?” or “Do you have a permit for that?” when, in the vast majority of jurisdictions, no registry is kept and no permits issued or required.
It’s political/security theater foisted on a public ignorant of all things gun (including rights, privilages and laws) and comforted by paternalistic, if suffocating, governance.
Stated another way, whoever made the decision to actually run the serial numbers, or at least claim they would, was invoking the cloudy concept of ‘doing something’ in an attempt to add legitimacy and value to the larger bit of theater that is the so called buy-back itself. The entirety of the enterprise reeks of dystopian Newspeak and ‘doing something’ for the sake of optics rather than in fact accomplishing something of moral or social value.
It’s also an example of seizing the opportunity to not merely signal one’s (leftist/statist) virtues, but to invite others to do the same, publicly, in a reinforcement of groupthink and classical conditioning Re: ‘social justice’. It’s intended more as a low-key ‘2 minutes hate’ than to serve any practical purpose.
If this sounds absurdly convoluted, wasteful, dishonest and foolish, consider the source and then extrapolate to see who benefits:
Pols and anti civil rights types receive publicity and gain political capital while advancing and reinforcing various anti-2A rights narratives (guns are bad and dangerous, guns equal crime and violence, only agents of the government should be armed, self disarmament is virtuous and by the act of surrendering voluntarily one’s arms one is elevated and the demands for the involuntary disarmament by government is ligitimized).
It’s Alabama. Bad things happen to grammar after several generations of cousin-centric reproduction.
I thought it was brother-sister.
Buyback?!? Eff those poor folks even more than they already are…at least a few knowledgeable cops get rich😡
And where is the PROOF of your claim that ‘a few knowledgeable cops get rich’? I’m waiting……
Anyone on any form of public assistance or entitlement scheme (eg, Social Security) turning in such valuable property as this for such minuscule compensation should be financially penalized.
Stupidity should have consequences.
Everybody is ignorant about different things.
Most of the people turning in guns at these events are deeply ignorant about guns.
Everyone has access to the Internet these days, if not at home then the library at least. There is no excuse for them giving up things of value just to feel good about themselves.
Social Security equated with welfare?!? What are smoking DG? As a very longtime antique dealer I assure you NOBODY KNOWS EVERYTHING. Duh..
Social Security is classified as an a) a entitlement, and b) by the SCOTUS as a “form of social insurance.”
Too many people think that Social Security funds are “their money.” That money isn’t yours. You have no property right in the money you paid into Social Security. Don’t believe me, believe your own lying eyes when you read Flemming v. Nestor the SCOTUS case that spelled all this out – back in 1960.
I make a hobby of reading SCOTUS opinions. They’re highly educational. Reading Flemming v. Nestor taught me that we’ve been lied to about Social Security for my entire life. Just as people thought that having a court order could be used to force the police to “do something” when they call, only to be corrected by Castle Rock v. Gonzales, Social Security gives you no property right, it isn’t a pension, you have no guarantee of benefits, the Congress can limit payouts of that money at any time to preserve the viability of the program, and you learn that in Flemming v. Nestor.
Well, this kind of stupidity DOES have consequences.
I’d give good homes to both those snake charmer .410 shotguns. And that sporterized Lee Enfield. And that……..
I think I see a Colt model 1917 revolver .45ACP in there. That is worth something.
“I’d give good homes to both those snake charmer .410 shotguns.”
You and me both, jwm. The ‘charmer’ was a brilliant design for someone on horseback.
What’s so maddening is, that gun is illegal in some areas because it technically qualifies as a ‘thumbhole stock’.
I wouldn’t mind mounting a scabbard on the front fork of my bike and using a ‘charmer as a ‘Velo-Dog’ gun, easy to use one-handed…
I don’t know much about it but unless it’s semi-automatic what law would make it illegal?
Ignorance knows no bounds. This is a case of straight up robbing the poor fools that have not a clue what they are giving away for pennies on the dollar. As for children getting a hold of these guns , ever hear of a gun lock. Set of 3 at walmart for $6.99 & you get to keep your family heirloom. Talk about taking advantage of people. This takes the cake. Sickening !!
‘Ignorance has no bounds’. How do you think Obozo got elected? TWICE! You are a little late to the party. ‘We have met the enemy and he is us’ – Pogo.
People who remain this damnably, willfully, ignorantly, and deceitfully stupid to surrender their firearms to these vile odious anti-gun “turn in scams” don’t deserve to be free, period! They are simply selling their souls, autonomy, human dignity, and freedom to the almighty socialist nanny state. I have posted here continuously this is not about keeping our streets safer, free from violent crime, or domestic tranquility. No. This is predicated upon political deceit and elitist class warfare! Also American gun owners, our Second Amendment heritage, freedom, decency, and morality. Two
commentaries of mine bear this out. They include: “Anti-gun agenda
is class warfare” (Friday, January 9, 2009) and “The war on America’s gun owners” (Monday, August 3, 2009), respectively. These remain archived via the Ashland Daily Tidings at http://www.daily tidings.com. Enter “search.”
Merchants who prostitute themselves to this via their $50.00 or $100.00 gift cards
are traitors, subversives, and enemies against our constitutional republic and rightly
deserve to be boycotted, picketed, and ran out of business! This Communist Party
inspired political deceit has no place in a free republic; this is a form of domestic
tyranny and likewise corrupts local law enforcement! In fact, federal money from
Washington, D.C. corrupts local law enforcement.
James A. “Jim” Farmer
Merrill, Oregon (Klamath County)
Throttle down there, Jim! Folks are just looking for a few bucks. Not everyone is a Commie pinko hiding under a bush. The have the right to sell their property. It has NOTHING to do with ‘elitist class warfare’ (whatever that is).
I disagree 100!. This is elitist class warfare! It’s part of an anti-gun agenda predicated upon political
deceit intended to condition the masses into surrendering not only their personal freedom and autonomy
to the almighty nanny state of socialism/collectivism, but likewise their human dignity, soul, and birthright!
Reminds me of a 1918 Bolehsvik propaganda poster in Russian urging peasants to surrender their arms,
knives, axes, sharpened farming utensils, etc. to the Cheka: the original Soviet Secret Police under Lenin
and Trotsky as a precedent to the Red Terror. Perhaps Henry Ford said it best: “for those who blindly
trust in the government (the state) try telling that to the American Indian. If this isn’t class warfare and
a deceitful political agenda of civilian disbarment, then what the Hell is it? My question: the local police
who prostitute themselves to this anti-gun racket. Are they receiving federal money from Washington, D.C?
Nothing corrupts local law enforcement worse than this; it’s a form of political bribery!
I see a Webley revolver.
Ha…that’s funny about that 715T. I just cleaned two rifles for an acquaintance, one which was a Marlin .22 and the other….a 715T I couldn’t believe that actually marketed that pile of shit. It was dirty beyond belief, so I took it out of the clam-shell and looked at it and was astonished someone would pay for that.
That’s exactly what they should do with them, turn them in at a gun buy backs. What a joke.
What are the odds that gang members turn in guns? Zip? Although there have been cases of people turning old guns so they use the money as down payment on better new one. Probably old ladies who forgot how to use a gun turned in 50% of them. And old guys another 30%.
By dumbing down the population about guns the owners now don’t know just how valuable a gun thats been pasted down really is. Sad.
I wonder if any of the gun store owners on here could pay for advertising and rent a venue and do a “gun buyback?”
Offer a slightly higher prices and if anyone asks what you’re doing with them, just say they will be collected together, processed by an “expert,”
Serial numbers checked. Never say outright what will happen to them.
Please get these weapons of war off the street and back in the display case at my LGS.
I had a TEK-22, once. $50 sounds about right.
“There appears to be a pre-64 model 70 Winchester in .30-06…”
https://i.imgur.com//PjHpPeq.gif
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